The Things That Stay [new draft]

New Year's Eve, 1985. While the rest of California counts down with champagne at the ready, Tulsi Dulari and Simon Ganfrey are staring down futures already forfeited. Tulsi-a withdrawn, shut-down biochem dropout-has been marooned behind the Pulmonary Ward's reception desk for months, her ambitions derailed by grief and inertia. Simon-high-strung, motor-mouthed, and chronically ill-has learned to treat every moment as borrowed. He takes what he can get...until he doesn't.

When Simon flatlines during Tulsi's night shift, she's pulled into post-resuscitation watch duty: a task meant to be temporary. Instead, the encounter sticks. What follows isn't friendship so much as a series of collisions: old scars traded like contraband-meals singed by both fury and overclocked ovens-laughter wagered in the face of loss. Neither of them has any talent for offering comfort, but they recognize in each other the same refusal to be pitied.

Spanning one improbable year, The Things That Stay is a tragicomic novel about risky bets and reluctant grace, about the ferocious, absurd ways we cling to each other when there's nothing left to promise. When every step is taken in the shadow of death, why not take the scenic route together?